Heart of Ice
by sorakazuma
Summary: Set during X791. Gray thought he had time to think about his unique relationship with Juvia, but that was before Lyon entered the picture.


_Gray is surprisingly difficult to write for, mostly because we don't know what his true intentions are. He's very reserved with his own feelings, which I tried to portray to the best of my ability. I hope Mashima-san gives us more canon Gruvia soon!_

Heart of Ice

Fairy Tail

(Gray x Juvia)

Gray hated losing- it was one of the things that irritated him like no other. And the person he was losing too only made that grating feeling worse.

Across the beach, Lyon Bastia smirked down at him, his arms folded across his bare muscular chest. It didn't change the fact that it was mid-march and that they were standing out on the beach in nothing but their boxer shorts. A warzone of ice was built up around them in every direction, shards of crystal sticking out of the sand like mortar shells and yet despite the impressive display, Lyon was still besting Gray in both speed and technique.

Gray loved Lyon dearly. He was the closest thing he had to a big brother. They had been brought up together, taught the same type of magic by their beloved teacher, who had left them with her will to make this world a better place for the people who lived in it. In many ways Lyon was as much family as the core group he hung out with in Fairy Tail, but Lyon had chosen a different path then him and the time they got to spend together was few and far between.

Ever since the time-skip though, Gray had fixated on filling in the gap. Somehow he and a bunch of the members of Fairy Tail had gotten stuck in a time rift and when they emerged, seven years had passed. A nineteen-year old Lyon had now become a twenty-six year old Lyon and the gap between them as mages had grown tremendously. Where before they had been the best of rivals, Gray was now staring over a canyon of magical growth that he had to try and bridge, and soon, if he wanted to even contest in the Fiore Magic Games.

Picking himself up off the sandy beach, he wiped his face, feeling the bruise stinging across his jaw. Lyon could be arrogant and a bit egotistical, but right now he had earned that. He was still, however, worried about his little sibling in the same way and he dropped his stance, waving his hand. The ice shattered and splintered around them instantly. "That's enough for now. We'll take a short break."

Gray wanted to protest but Lyon was already walking away, back to the small camp where they had left their clothes and the boy was not about to take a cheap shot at his older mentor; he would probably see no mercy after that if he did.

He collapsed back on the cold sand, feeling the breeze blow by him. Cold had stopped meaning anything to him long ago. His body could withstand the most frigid of temperatures without flinching. In fact room temperature made him uncomfortable and a sunny day in July made him wilt into a sweaty unmotivated mess. He was a true ice mage- honed in the artic.

"Hey Gray," Lyon started, raking back his long silver bangs as the stubborn strands kept falling in his dark eyes. He had come to sit beside him. "Who is that charming blue-haired woman in your guild?"

The navy blue eyes looked over at him. "Juvia?" His brow furrowed, completely puzzled.

Lyon's onyx eyes lit up. "Yes, her!" He seemed almost sheepish as he paused. "Do you know if she's seeing anyone?"

The question made Gray's dark blue eyes glance away. Was she seeing anyone? No. Was she crazy about someone? YES. That someone happened to be him, and Gray was convinced there was no limit to her insanity. What had first started out as harmless stalking had grown into occasionally putting his very life in danger. At first he didn't want to believe in anything, but as time went on, her advances became painfully obvious and he couldn't pass it off anymore as just a coincidence.

"Nah." Gray shrugged after a minute. He wasn't about to embarrass himself by admitting he had been followed for the last seven months by some crazy chick who was constantly treating him as if they were already married.

Lyon's face lit up. "That's great!" He said, his cheeks flushing. Gray simply didn't get it. "I wonder if she'll go out to dinner with me."

At that Gray couldn't help but smile. "Good luck with that dude," He told him, confident that there was no way Juvia was going to take up such an invitation when she was crazy about him…. Emphasis on CRAZY.

Lyon's dark eyes narrowed at him. "Why do you say that?" He replied, his tone full of suspicion. "Is she interested in someone in Fairy Tail?"

Gray's smile turned sheepish. "You could say that."

"I won't accept it!" Lyon clenched a fist full of sand. "I'll just have to prove that I'm the better man, that's all."

Gray blinked at that, surprised with how that comment stung. He hadn't even told Lyon it was him she was insane about, but still he took mild offense to that. "You think so do you?"

Lyon heard the chiding tone in his voice, and grinned up at his little brother. "Don't be a fool Gray. I've been wiping the beach with you all day. Whoever this guy is, he is not going to stand in the way of winning fair Juvia's heart!"

"The day's not over yet." The dark-haired ice mage grinned. "I think you better stop spacing out over some girl and take me seriously!"

The battle proved to draw Lyon's attention, and talk of Juvia diminished after that.

In the end, the most Gray could contend with was dodging and avoiding Lyon's attacks. He was able to get one or two lucky hits in, but most of his blows were dull compared to the razor-sharp precision that his brother possessed. Lyon finally got bored and called it a day, leaving Gray to stew in his own defeat.

It was that annoying fact that he dwelled on, and not the other piece of information sitting on the back of his mind. He refused to be weak, and his ambition to become a top-flight mage started to consume him. He dwelled in battle, thought only of himself, and little about the guild or his friends in those few days.

So it was by complete surprise that he passed Juvia in the Fairy Tail hall near the end of the week, looking dressed to kill.

She was in a navy dress with white fur trim that nearly went to the floor, her baby blue hair left in subtle waves falling around her shoulders. Like most of the girls he knew, she managed to make the most of her curves, the fabric of the halter top straining to contain the swell of her breasts.

For a moment he just stopped dead, not even minding that he was staring. She was saying goodbye to Lucy, who had done her makeup and when she turned, just seemed to notice him standing there. Her long dark lashes batted and then she smiled. "Evening, Gray." She said softly as she passed by him.

Gray was at a loss for so long, he didn't even bother saying anything until she was out the door. "WHERE THE HELL IS SHE GOING?!" He demanded, knowing someone in the guild would answer him.

"Ah! Gray!" Lucy leaned over the railing. "We were looking for you earlier!"

"She was meeting that obnoxious friend of yours." Gajeel announced from across the room, looking annoyed about the loud interruption.

"Yeah." Lucy came downstairs to meet him, a hand on her hip. She was staring at Gray with a look of sheer frustration. "And you weren't here to tell him off so he harassed her until she said yes." Her brown eyes flitted off to the dragon slayer across the room. "It got to the point that Gajeel had to step in and say something, but by that point Juvia had already promised him..."

For Gray this impacted like a ten-ton blow to his chest. He stood there staring at Lucy like he hadn't understood a word she said, and then slowly shrugged it off. "Not like it's any of my business who she dates." He replied though the idea was still burrowing through his chest like the grinding stab of a drill.

"Gray!" Lucy looked offended at that, but he was already walking away from her. He saw the look in Gajeel's red eyes as he passed the table and it only made him feel a bit more irritated.

What was he supposed to do? She had made a decision on her own and followed through with it. Was he supposed to chase after her, and tell her not to go? And for what?

A part of him felt like chasing her down was the right thing to do. He had no idea what he'd say to her, but something about the whole thing was unsettling. It hurt, that she would be so into him for so long and then suddenly, she was going off with other men?

Being the type to steep in his emotions, Gray was plagued with it for the entire evening, turning the situation over and over in his head, finding ways to look at it that only worsened the blow. It put him in an increasingly worse mood and by morning he had decided that he was not going to bother with her any more. She wasn't worth losing sleep over, and he'd lost quite a bit already.

The next day, Juvia was downstairs with the other girls. She was telling them all about her night out when he got there. As soon as she saw him, her reaction was the same as always; she batted her dark eyes, her cheeks flushing. "Gray-sama."

"Morning." He spoke in a casual tone, making his way up to the bar.

Lucy glared over at him, still sour from last night and Juvia just batted her lashes, as if she were surprised by his attitude.

Gray was over it though. One date was nothing to be worried over and whether anything happened or not, it was none of his business. Hopefully she would have realized that they didn't have anything in common and that would be the end of that.

That didn't stop Lyon from coming to call though. If he wasn't away on guild business, he seemed to be at Fairy Tail Headquarters, and while Gray appreciated his help training, he did not like the fact that most of his time was spent hanging all over Juvia.

Moreover, Juvia didn't seem able to stop his advances either. She was suddenly shy of all of his attention and the more affection he poured on her the more she seemed to melt.

The whole situation was aggravating to Gray to say the least. It didn't sit well with his insides and every time Lyon showed his face he was being forced to endure his brother's lovey-dovey attitude to a point before Gray just snapped. Seeing the two of them together stung, and seeing Juvia being such a flake only made him wonder more and more if she'd ever had feelings for him in the first place.

From the sound of the conversation that day, they hadn't been out on a date since the first one and Lyon was trying his hardest to get her to go out with him again. Listening to him beg and plead, all the while wearing that charismatic smile that should have struck females dead was sickening, but the conversation had been the same, every day, for days now.

And finally, Gray couldn't take it anymore.

"Hey," He snapped from his seat across the bar. "Leave her the hell alone."

This got the attention of quite a few members of his guild, as well as the couple sitting at one of the tables behind him.

Lyon looked up, his raven eyes batting as he stared at his brother. "What was that?"

"You heard me," Gray had his back to the bar and had been watching them for quite a while now, by the irritation showing on his face. "She's not interested in you. Get over yourself, and move on."

"Gray!" Juvia's navy eyes were wide as she stared at him in shock.

"You got a thing for her or something?" Lyon straightened, standing up so that he was directly facing Gray and not leaning all over Juvia like he had been.

His little brother stared back, eyes narrowed. "How I feel about here is irrelevant. Any decent man is not gonna stand by and let you harass a woman like that. Your family, but that doesn't mean we won't kick your ass."

Seats shuffled around the bar and Lyon turned to see more than a dozen of the Fairy Tail men standing, ready to go the instant Lyon made the first move.

The white-haired ice mage blinked, realizing the sort of situation he was in. "Ah, well I guess I have crossed a line." He leaned down and took Juvia's hand in his. "It will have to wait until the Fiore Games then, my dear." He told her, kissing her knuckles affectionately, and then with a flare of his cloak, let himself out.

The tension in the guild eased out the second he was gone and Gray found Lucy nearly barreling down his throat. "WHY COULDN'T YOU DO THAT SOONER?!" She demanded, staring up at him.

"What they do is no business of mine." He scoffed. "I just got sick of listening to it." His dark blue eyes flashed to the water mage sitting across from him. "If she wants to be with Lyon, she can do it some place else."

"Gray!" Lucy's face was flushing with anger.

"Gray-sama, that isn't-" Juvia started, but Gray was on his feet and moving away from them without another word.

Letting himself outside, he aimlessly walked until he was on top of the nearby hill, and then collapsed in the grass. The sky was endlessly blue above his head, the trees were starting to turn green again and it was a cold windy afternoon. He could deal with this.

He had come to terms long ago with the fact that something was broken inside of him. He had people he could trust in, friends who he could believe in, but when it came to "love" the concept was foreign to him. He still found he wanted to hold everyone at a distance. He jokingly believed that ice flowed through his veins, and that his profession had frozen his heart, because every girl he had ever met had never managed to strike inside that frigid barrier of his emotions.

Juvia was too close to hitting home. Over the weeks and months, her constant dedication and loyalty, sometimes leveling on the bizarre, had been so overwhelming that she had been chipping away at the sealed dam of emotion in him. Sometimes when they were in a battle for their lives it had been downright scary to think about losing her, and other times he found himself wondering where she had gone when she wasn't around.

The last couple of weeks, she had been on his mind every day, but it wasn't for the right reasons. It was because of Lyon. His stupid older brother couldn't help but be a bit of a letch and now Gray was paying for it by feeling this way. He had told him off, and although he had said it was for Juvia's sake, he knew the truth. It had mostly been for himself.

He closed his eyes, forcing his mind to stop thinking about all of these things. He didn't know what to believe in, what he wanted, or even how to get it. In a situation like this he didn't think trying to take lessons on love from Lyon was going to fix the problem either. He felt… lost.

He was aware some time later that someone had come to him while he had slept. He had been moved, though he had to admit, he felt comfortable. Slowly he opened his eyes, afraid of what he was going to see, but he only got a lovely profile of Juvia staring off into the distance.

From up close he did notice little things about her that he didn't take into account before; how long her lashes were, or how fair her pale skin really was. Her cerulean hair was curled today in those big rolls that set just above her shoulders, but her bangs were loose and swayed in the breeze around her face.

Her hand had been resting on his shoulder but she moved, her fingers sweeping up through his short raven hair, nails massaging his scalp. That was about the time that she noticed that he was awake and she went rigid, staring down at him with big eyes.

He ignored her momentary flight of panic. "How long was I out for?" He asked in his usual cool tone.

"M-Maybe an hour or so." She stammered out. "Not long." She slowly lifted her touch from him, prepared for him to move away but he made no such intention. In fact he closed his eyes again, seeming content to go back to sleep. "Um… Gray-sama?"

"Hmn?" He replied softly, shifting his shoulders so that he was more comfortable. It was not what he had been expecting to wake up to, but he had to admit, he didn't mind all that much.

Juvia bit at her bottom lip. "I'm sorry that I made you so angry with me. I didn't really want to go out to dinner with Lyon. We only went for drinks, and I only stayed an hour or so." She bowed her head. "I don't want you mad at me."

Gray was thinking about what would be the right thing to say, fighting the urge to be dismissive with her again, when he felt something warm and wet hit his cheek. He flinched, his eyes batting open again to see her shoulders shaking and tears slipping down her fair cheeks.

The gesture was more of a blow than anything else. How could he have doubted her feelings for him? He didn't understand how she could solely believe so much in him. He wasn't that great a guy… in fact, between his bad habits and his cold personality he didn't see why she would be interested in him at all. He had been only thinking of himself and had let this get out of hand and now he was paying for it with the sound of her tears. Perhaps the realization of all of this was that she had the ability to move him, something no other girl had ever been able to do.

"I forgive you." He said after along moment. "And I'm sorry too." For so many things that he couldn't yet say out loud.

She just looked at him with her blue eyes and flushed cheeks, like he was her whole world, and he knew whole-heartedly in that moment that it was true. They stared at each other and as her sobs quieted he smiled. If something as simple as his attention and his kindness could ease her pain, and make her happy, then he would try to be better from now on. It was like this that he came to the conclusion that being in a serious relationship with her may not be all bad.

Without warning she grabbed him, squeezing him tight. He had been expecting that, but he still couldn't manage to get away.

"GRAY-SAMA!"

"Urgh… y-you're choking me! Let go!"

He had forgotten with all the mushy stuff going on that she was also ridiculously clingy and partially crazy. Still… they all came with baggage and he was just as guilty at that. The fact of the matter was that she looked past all his faults…maybe he could learn to look past hers too.


End file.
